Pages

19 August, 2011

Sunshine bush after the fire

Last Friday I picked out the raisins. To
share that, sometimes overwhelming feeling amongst the diversity in fynbos. Every which way you turn, at a
second glance, that is so too, a different species. Today I'm caught in the
first impression. The Who Needs ho hum flowers, if your fresh ‘spring’ leaves
are this flamboyant??

Depending on the season, what you notice as you
cross the invisible line from whatever to fynbos– is clumps of restios. Their form quite distinctly
revealing that invisible boundary. Time it right and what you are hit with – is
bushes – flaming in lime gold and neon burgundy. In the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area. Up on the mountain we look out at from our garden.

Looking across to the Piketberg

The Proteaceae is an ancient family and existed in the time of the dinosaurs. It comprises about 1600 species in some 77 genera and is largely confined to southern hemisphere countries. With 45 genera Australia has the most representatives, followed by Africa with 14 genera. In the southwestern Cape alone, more than 330 species of the family have been recorded. Other countries where Proteaceae occur include Central and South America, islands east of New Guinea, New Caledonia, Madagascar, southeast Asia, New Guinea and New Zealand. - from PlantZAfrica

Proteas earn their name for their protean form.
The easy ones, which have recognisable flowers – are in the Protea genus. Protea neriifolia contains nectar, and someone (a baboon?)
has harvested and torn open this flower, scattering the seeds according to
plan.

Protea neriifolia

The sunshine bush is a Leucadendron. What delights the eye is the flaming lime gold new
leaves. The actual flowers, are weird.

Yellow Leucadendron

Neon burgundy blazes to a different tune.

Burgundy Leucadendron

And the flowers are protean in their weirdness.
Male and female different, to add to the amateur botanist’s utter confusion!

Leucadendron flowers

The walk climbs gently to the ridge, then falls
abruptly and steeply down. Winding past a few oaks, a reminder of once was a
farm up here. This is the jeep track you would travel if staying over and
hiking or climbing. When the path, gratefully, levels out again, there is a waboom forest. Protea nitida. So called because the Voortrekkers used to tear out the small trees, and tie them to the
oxwagons to use as brakes. Doesn’t actually bear thinking about. I was
concentrating on just walking ME down. (Or more prosaically, to be used as wheel rims and brake blocks).

Waboom - Protea nitida

Very few bushes were left standing green after the mountain fire. But each dead blackened trunk is surrounded by dozens
of flourishing teenaged seedlings. Just a few more years and the forest will
stand again. I have included the Ungardener, engrossed in photographing a
beetle, for scale. In time these waboom
protea bushes really are trees reaching way above our heads.

Waboom forest

Beyond the waboom
forest the vegetation changes again to a plain covered with waving palomino
grass.

One of the ‘better life for all’ things about
the New South Africa. Travelling across country, farm workers’ houses and RDP houses have solar panels. After a long hard day’s work there will be hot water.
How much we take that for granted! Running water. Electricity at the flick of a
switch. Internet connection.

Solar panel on a farm worker's house

Next Friday's post will be the Ungardener taking our
Computer man to see the Wilderness Area, for the first time, after YEARS of
living in Porterville.

Pictures by Diana and Jurg,

words by Diana of Elephant's Eye- wildlife gardening in Porterville,near Cape Town in South Africa(If you mouse over brown text,it turns shriek pink. Those are my links.)

I love how transmitted light reveals the red edge and veining in the Protea nitida. Leucodendrons of some sort are getting quite popular around me for their exotic (to us) looks and culture easier than most actual protea species.

Diana, all the photos are wonderful, of course, but that top one just sings. This may be a silly question given your latitude, but are those high valleys glacier-carved? The photo on the lower-left of the last collage made me wonder. How quickly do the proteas in the waboom forest grow? Will the reforestation be a matter of a few years, or decades? From Denver you can see a mountain that was about 1/3 bare when I was growing up. My mother remembers the fire that burned it from her childhood, and it's just regrown enough in the last few years to really fill in the gap.

Stacy - the fire was in November 2009, so you see almost two seasons growth. Proteas fork with each new year of growth, so you can count the forks (annual rings). It will take years until the new growth blurs the burnt standing skeletons.

The mountains are I think more like your mesas and buttes. The cliffs above are Table Mountain Sandstone. Lying over granite to the east of Cape Town, and Malmesbury shale to our west side of Cape Town. Giving nature and the gardener rocky, clay or sandy soil.

b a g - sometimes we see a few others have signed in, but we almost never see anyone but the ranger near the gate. Part of me is delighted to have a World Heritage Site all to our selfish selves, and part of me wishes for a few more visitors to protect this wilderness area by being present.